The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The ... - josephprestonkirk

284 THE IMPORTANCE OF ISAIAH AT QUMRAN
Jerusalem took the route outlined in these verses. Sennacherib’s well-documented
third campaign in 701 B.C.E. took the normal invasion route
for Assyrian and later Babylonian armies, first marching down the coast
through Philistine territory, to secure the Assyrian’s southern flank from
the threat of any possible Egyptian relief force. Then, once it secured this
flank, the Assyrian force systematically reduced the outlying fortresses in
the Judean Shephelah to open its way for an attack on Jerusalem. There
is absolutely no indication in any of our sources, Assyrian or Israelite,
that Sennacherib launched a surprise attack on Jerusalem from the north.
Because of this difficulty, scholars have postulated an unrecorded
Assyrian advance against Jerusalem in 715 or 711 B.C.E., but there is no
evidence that such an advance even took place, much less that it followed
the route described in Isaiah 10. Nor is there any reason to believe that
this description simply adapts an old pilgrimage route in an imaginative
portrayal of God’s threat to Jerusalem. 33
There is only one historically verifiable march of an enemy army
against Jerusalem both taking place during Isaiah’s lifetime, and for
which the line of march portrayed in this account is probable—Syria and
Israel’s joint attack on Jerusalem during the Syro-Ephraimitic war (Isa
7:1–9; 2 Kings 16:5). 34 The natural road for such an attack was the
north-south road from Shechem to Jerusalem, which followed the spine
of the central ridge; where this account deviates from that road, tactical
considerations uniquely appropriate to the Syrian-Israelite objectives in
that war account for the deviation. According to Isa 10:28, at Michmash
the enemy made final preparations for battle before crossing over the pass
and making camp for the night at Geba. The route described here suggests
that the attacking army made a wide swing to the east of the main
north-south road somewhere in the vicinity of Bethel and did not rejoin
it until somewhere south of Ramah. The purpose for choosing this
unusual and more-difficult route was apparently to avoid the Judean border
fortress at Mizpeh. This would fit the Syrian-Israelite strategy in their
attempt on Jerusalem. They were interested in a surprise attack against
Jerusalem that would enable them to isolate the city, quickly breach its
defenses, capture Ahaz, and replace him with a king of their own choosing.
All of this had to be accomplished in time to regroup their forces and
redeploy to the north in order to meet the threat of an Assyrian invasion.
Unlike Sennacherib, who boasted of systematically reducing forty-six of
33. Duane L. Christensen, “The March of Conquest in Isaiah X 27c–34, ” VT 26
(1976): 385–99.
34. See the discussion in Herbert Donner, “Der Feind aus dem Norden: Topographische
und archäologische Erwägungen zu Jes 10:27b–34, ” ZDPV 84 (1968): 46–54.